JSE sets anonymity problems eased by new BOSS version 2

Brampton York Software Technologies, the software and systems development company, has announced the release of version 2 of its Bid Offer Spread System (BOSS) for stockbrokers and asset managers.

Designed as an indication system to facilitate communication of bid and offer intentions between financial service players, the new system provides several powerful new features for new users. Specifically, BOSS 2 is focused on alleviating the rising problems of anonymity in the market that brokers and traders are experiencing with the new LSE SETS system.

Stuart Mackereth, from Brampton York, says: "The first version of BOSS was developed to get the system out the door and start adding value, mainly to asset managers, from day one. In version 2 we have now started looking towards the needs of the brokers as well.

"The main improvements have been around the issue of communication and accessibility. In the past we used encrypted SMTP packages to communicate between brokers and traders so that the infrastructure issues would be negligible. As the system has matured, MAPI and FIX have been added, and bids and offers have essentially been given a lifecycle in a bi-directional communication system.

"A full Indication of Intent (IOI) system has been developed, and as soon as a FIX network is rolled out at a client, BOSS will just snap in. Bids and Offers can expire, be changed, replaced, deleted, and the entire network of correspondents that a broker or trader may deal with, are automatically updated, and confirmations received."

Mackereth added that BOSS 2 is SETS ready, and supports the new market structure of Economic Groups, Sectors and Sub-Sectors.

Eric Uphof, one of the systems architects, says: "Stability and scalability were paramount in this version - which is essentially a redesign from scratch. We`ve added support for several powerful relational databases, including SQL Server and Oracle, as we found that asset managers tended to accumulate market data for statistical analysis, and size and speed became important. Several of our clients have built huge databases over the last year, and clearly Access could not cope."

The biggest advantage of the system was to deal with the problem of anonymity of trades in the market with the new LSE`s SETS system. BOSS is useful here since it tracks potential pre-trade information that is not anonymous, and certain extrapolations and "indications" can be made from the data.

"While waiting for the new SETS system," says Mackereth, "most of our clients just adopted a wait-and-see policy towards the system, thinking perhaps the functionality would come with the new SETS system. Now we are seeing that it hasn`t, and the interest for the system has surged again. We are currently looking at ways of integrating further into SETS to provide a trading interface directly as well as order book management.

"A key feature coming in the next version will be extensive and flexible reporting and statistical tools to interpret the data coming from the system. Right now the system provides the data, without interpretation, and we hope to add a level of customisable interpretation to help users see market trends, and `who`s doing what` really.

"BOSS 2 now also supports interaction with users that do not have BOSS, so you don`t have to have BOSS to get the benefits of the system, and we have also added a comprehensive real-time API for clients who have their own systems but wish to link to BOSS for communication purposes."

Brampton York provides custom development and integration of the system upon request, as well as general software and integration programming for all brokers and asset managers that wish to tie their systems together, and link systems to the new SETS system.

"BOSS is just one small niche product we offer out of a range of development services we offer to the financial services industry, but certainly has helped get our foot in the door," concludes Mackereth.